


Things that have never happened in BtVS

by Bacner



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Buffy the Vampire Slayer - fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, myths and legends, transformations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24414628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: Precisely what it says on the tin - things that never happened in BtVS canon.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Things that have never happened in BtVS

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lila_luscious1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lila_luscious1/gifts).



> Disclaimer: All of the characters belong to their responsive owners.

1) No one on the show has ever been petrified

“... and apparently, the mayor had had Sophie – that’s the gorgon - bound in some cavern outside of Sunnydale, and Faith found this out, and freed her before coming to work for him,” Dawn was eagerly explaining the situation to Buffy. “And then, when you and Faith were fighting ‘cause Faith had kidnapped me and mom, Sophie came back and petrified you, because she’s a gorgon and petrifaction is what she does.”

“And then what happened?” Buffy slowly asked, vividly remembering the sudden black-out that came over her as she was fighting Faith all over the Summers’ living quarters.

“Well, mom was rather mad. Being kidnapped was one thing, seeing you petrified before her – our - eyes was quite another. Consequently, she got real mad and gave Faith and Sophie a very stern talk.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, remember the talk you two had about Spike in the kitchen with the cocoa? It was in that vein... Anyways, both Sophie and Faith apologized, Sophie even put away her ‘grrr’ face – it’s kind of like Spike and Angel’s, only scarier and, well, petrifying, and they promised to turn you back to flesh-“

“Which they did.”

“Yeah, but it was real hard. Apparently, only a Pegasus could restore you back to flesh after Sophie turned you to stone, and only one who is pure of heart and noble of intentions could capture one of those, so Faith and Sophie needed help, and I couldn’t help until it was spring break, so we kind of waited until then. Oh, and then the soldier guys – remember them? – created this Frankenstein monster, and we had to stop it, and then a hell-goddess came to town and we had to stop her.”

“Dawn. How long?”

“About two years, on the average.”

“Two years?”

“Yeah, but Faith is real good as a Slayer, and besides, um-“ Dawn visibly hesitated about telling Buffy the next part, and Buffy saw it.

“Dawn. Out with it.”

“Well, according to Giles it’s an unfortunate, but unavoidable side effect-“

“You’re stalling, Dawn.”

“Buffy. You’re no longer the Slayer and mom says that now you’ll be able to catch-up on your studies and be the daughter that she always wanted you to be-“

Buffy fainted.

-Or-

“... and apparently, the mayor had had Sophie – that’s the gorgon - bound in some cavern outside of Sunnydale, and Faith found this out, and freed her before coming to work for him,” Buffy explained to Willow, who grew more and more apprehensive as the story unfolded. “And then, when Faith confronted the two of us at the U of S campus, Sophie decided to help and sort of petrified you on the stop. Would have petrified me too, if Faith didn’t knock me away.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, everybody scattered except for me and Faith ‘cause Sophie, when she goes ‘Grrr’, she goes not only petrifying, but really glittering and intimidating even from a distance, so me and her and Faith had a conversation to ourselves, and then the three of us kind of dragged you over to Giles’, and he told us that only a Pegasus could restore you back to flesh, and that only the ones with purest of heart and the noblest of intentions could capture one of those, and so Tara obviously had to go with them, and Giles also because he knew how to get there-“

“Get where?”

“To the land where Pegasi roam,” Buffy stated as if it was obvious. “Tara ‘cause she had the prerequisites, Giles because he knew how, Sophie because she was a native, and Faith because Sophie asked her to, very politely,” Buffy hesitated, and Willow clearly noticed it:

“What is wrong, Buffy?”

“Well, nothing went wrong with them,” Buffy said guiltily, “they came back and brought a Pegasus who restored you back to flesh. Only – and Giles here tells me that it is an unfortunate side effect – this restoration means that you no longer have any magic in you, and won’t able to use it ever again.”

“What?!”

“But on the plus side,” Buffy hurriedly spoke, “Tara and Anya can deal with magical emergencies of the supernatural side, and no Wiccan studies means that you can now devote your full time to your U of S studies, because you’ve been expelled due to petrifaction, so all has worked out, right?”

Willow had a nervous breakdown and fainted.

2) Nothing (too) exciting has ever happened to Joyce

“Giles, you’re babbling,” Buffy said with a nervous tick, “and you never babble. What has happened?”

“Buffy,” Giles said with a big gulp of air, “when you run away this summer, your mother had received several Native African masks for her gallery, and one of them was a very real and magically powerful mask of Anansi, the spider god.”

“I do so not like what you are getting at here, Giles,” Buffy said as a trickle of fear skid down her back.

“And you take too long to make sense, either,” Joyce agreed, as with clicking of her 8 legs, she entered the room.

Buffy just stared in mute terror at the 8-foot, 200-pound, 4-eyed monstrosity that her mother had turned into.

“Now Buffy,” Joyce continued to speak in her old voice, “I am aware now that you’re a Slayer and all that, but I am afraid that now our family dynamics will have to change and you will have to grow-up quicker than you thought-“

But here Buffy could remain aware no longer and mercifully fainted.

3) There were no lycanthropes other than Oz

“...All that I am saying is that there were dozens of other guys out there at the construction site at Gus’s grave but I am the one who ended up cursed!” Xander complained loudly at the Summers’ family’s Thanksgiving table. Even more unfortunately, he chose to complain to Spike who was hardly sympathetic to his plight.

“Here,” the blonde vampire said flatly, “have some honey mustard lest your situation becomes too unbearable.”

Xander roared and shifted into his ursine form as he whirled onto Spike. The chipped vampire, unable to harm humans, was just as eager to take on the new werebear in a wrestling match, and the two began to roll around the dining rooms.

...In the end, it took all of Buffy’s strength to keep them apart and by then she wasn’t too gentle with either of them. It was a family Thanksgiving that no one forgot for a long, long time.

4) There was no (official) occasion when Willow’s spells had backfired on her

“Willow,” Giles almost clucked from indignation, “I got to say that I was wrong when I thought that Amy turning herself into a rat was the worst thing that an aspiring witch could turn herself into. Did you have to prove me wrong?”

“No,” Willow resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at the currently dour Englishman, “I didn’t. But the enchantment sounded really cool and I thought that it would be actually harmless.”

“Well, it is not!” Anya said sharply before Giles could. “It’s obviously not harmless, and the restoration spell to drive it out is actually costly: flippers of dolphin, fur of selkie, legs of a frog – and the scales of golden carp of Heavens. Hmm, Giles, you said that Faith was a criminal, right? Maybe we can break her out of jail so that she gets these scales for us, because that’s what criminals do, right? They break in and steal things, especially valuable ones?”

“Anya!” Buffy spoke up sharply as the mention of the other Slayer raised her hackles instinctively. “Don’t joke! Faith is the last person we need at this hour!”

“Perhaps,” Giles agreed, nipping this argument in the bud, as he glared down at Willow, “but we may have to, in the long run, before the spell becomes permanent, and Willow’s transformation is permanent.”

Willow gulped air and slid under the surface of the water-filled tub. So now she was a mermaid and could breathe water through gills. Big whoop. Stupid spell.

And if it were to be permanent, what would she do?

5) There weren’t any non-human Scoobies (besides Angel, and Spike and Anya don't really count)

“Ah, you must be Tara – I’m Faith.”

Tara whirled around and saw another young woman of apparently the same age as her own leaning casually against a tree.

“Yes, I am Tara,” she managed to say, “and you-“

“-are apparently evil and know your nature.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Tara said, as she nervously tried to back-paddle from the spot.

“Maybe,” Faith drawled out, and something in her voice made Tara stop in her tracks, as she turned and stared at the other girl. Brightly green eyes met dark black ones and held.

“Now,” Faith continued, as she rapped her knuckles lightly against a trunk of an oak tree next to which she stood, “I truly hate to impose my will on another person, but right now, I am out for revenge on Buffy, and you may be just the person to aid me.” She rapped her knuckles again, this time not so lightly, and the tree shuddered from her strength.

“Fine, I will help you, woodrot your soul!” Tara spat out.

Faith nodded, her face impassive, her eyes languidly dark once again. “Thank you, young dryad; I will not force you to do anything too evil.”

Forced to literally choose her life over her principles, Tara just nodded.

6) What if Cordelia’s wish was different?

“...And I wish that everyone could see Willow Rosenberg as the shy wallflower she claims to be!” Cordelia spat out her wish.

“Granted!” Anyanka nodded, her true visage briefly coming to the fore.

“Giles!” Xander and Buffy yelled a few moments later, as they rushed into the library.

“What is it?”

“We just sat down for class and Willow turned into this!” Buffy wailed, as she thrust a small, potted flower into Giles’s arm.

Giles sat down with a look suggesting that he would rather have a heart attack than deal with this, but he had no choice.

And in her new flower pot, Willow the heliotropium just bloomed quietly.

7) What if Angel’s curse was different (from canon?)

“Willow!” Buffy quickly scurried into her best girlfriend’s room, “I have so messed up!”

“Buffy?!” Willow exclaimed just as quietly, “what have you done?”

“After Angel rescued me from the judge, me and him, he and I, we-“

“You didn’t!”

“We did! And then he turned into this-!” Buffy thrust the birdcage in her hand up to Willow’s face. Inside the container, a large black and white magpie was chattering excitedly. “Help? Ideas? Willow, I’m traumatized here!”

“I’m sorry,” Willow replied as she did her best to contain her giggles, “let me just... catch my breath.”

Buffy pouted.

8) Ethan has never actively stood-up to Giles

“...And all you need to do to return all party-goers to normal,” Ethan wiped some of his blood from his face, “is to smash the statue of Janus.”

“You’re honest?” Giles said suspiciously.

“Yes.”

And Giles smashed the wax statue. There was a flash of waxy-white light, the echo of a magical backlash, and in place of a bespectacled Englishman a small poplar sapling began to acquire moisture through its roots.

“I finally got you now, Ripper,” Ethan nastily smiled.

9) Nobody knows how Ethan dealt with the Initiative

“We’re onto you!” Riley sternly told the Chaos Mage. “You won’t be able to do any of your tricks here!”

Ethan just smiled, and perhaps it could be easily considered a reply as a semi-transparent mist began to seep through the subterranean complex’s air vent systems. Riley noticed and whirled around to raise an alarm, but it was too late: he was shrinking, his limbs were stiffening...

“Oh Ripper,” Ethan said few moment later, after it was all over, “you never learned that no prison could hold me.”

At his feet, a big greylag goose – formerly a commando for the Initiative, named Riley Finn, made a mournful honk, echoed by his compatriots, now also all sorts of wild fowl species. The crushed feathers of the Stymphalian words have done their work well; all people except for Ethan were now birds.

Ethan Rayne just smiled a little smile and left, eager for his next rematch with Rupert Giles.

10) Darla had relatively very little screen time in canon (on BtVS)

“Mom, I am home!” Buffy called out as she entered the house – and froze. Her mother was sitting in the Summers’ family kitchen, next to another smallish blonde woman, whose face sprouted the trademark bony ridges of a vampire.

“Ah, hello my dear!” Joyce turned to Buffy, her own eyes yellow and faced ridged. “How was your patrol? Please, sit down and let me introduce you to Darla who will be a very important person in our lives from now on.”

Buffy took a big gulp of air... and fainted.

11) Willow could have defeated Glory in other ways

“All right, who ordered Armageddon?” Glory asked haughtily, as she watched Willow stride into her room. “Do you think you can hurt me, little witch?”

“You hurt Tara,” Willow growled through her teeth, “so I bring you pain!” A greenish-white dart of magical energy flew from her finger into Glory’s well-endowed chest.

Glory blinked. “Little witch, your bark is worse than your bite – that didn’t hurt at all-“ The hell-goddess stiffened and fell silent, as bark covered her mouth and her flesh turned to wood.

“Yeah, it didn’t hurt at all,” Willow chuckled grimly, as she looked at the gnarled myrrh tree that Glory has turned into. “Guess I will just have to do something different.”

With these words – and an appropriate arcane gesture – Willow conjured a lightning bolt that blasted the immobile tree into smithereens, thus restoring Tara’s sanity back to normal.

12) Dawn’s impromptu spell does bring Joyce back - wrong

“Dawn!” Buffy exclaimed angrily. “What have you done?”

“I brought mother back!” Dawn replied in equally bad mood. “How’s that for an answer?”

Before Buffy could reply, the front door off was torn off its hinges and in came a 9-foot-tall 500-pound heavy Joyce with pale-greenish skin.

“Now girls!” Mrs. Summers thundered in her new loud voice. “Stop fighting with each other and behave!”

Both Dawn and Buffy fainted.

13) Buffy did come back wrong

“Fix me,” Buffy thundered, “now!”

“We will, we will!” Anya gushed, as Willow fluttered in a grip of a 32-foot-tall female colossus with blonde hair and skin the colour of flint. “But please put Willow down. We need her - unfortunately.”

Back in Buffy’s grip, Willow gulped. Somehow she began to suspect that even if they do fix Buffy, she would have still a mountain of trouble to get through.

Starting with the very obviously angry Anya – and Tara.

14) Buffy was never a Slayer

“Mr. Giles,” Buffy said with a slight growl in her voice, “I hate to tell you this, but you’re wrong. I am no Slayer – I am a werewolf. Deal with it!”

Giles paled.


End file.
